Naptime
by suburbs
Summary: A look at what it might be like for Caitlyn to be left at home with two children while her husband travels on tour.


Disclaimer: I do not own Camp Rock. This is my take on what it might be like to be home with kids while your husband went on tour. Unfortunately, this story is based on real events.

Nate paced inside the Connect 3 tour bus with his cell phone to his ear. He was waiting for his wife to pick up the phone. It had been a long day with a photo shoot and three interviews, and the guys still had a concert later in the evening. He really wanted to vent to Caitlyn. He had no idea it was going to be this hard to go on tour without her and their two little girls, but Caitlyn said there was no way she was living on a tour bus with a 3 year old and a 15 month old.

The ringing finally stopped, and he heard his wife snap, "Not now, Nate." Then nothing.

"Caitlyn?" Nate said. But she was gone.

"What the hell was that?" Nate said to himself. He stared at the phone in disbelief. A few moments later, Shane and Jason found him standing in the middle of the bus, looking at his phone and muttering to himself.

"Uhm, Nate? What's going on?" Shane asked.

"Caitlyn hung up on me." Nate said.

"What did you do?" Jason questioned.

"What do you mean?" Nate snapped. "I didn't do anything. I can't believe her. She couldn't even take a few minutes out of her day to talk to her own husband? God, she wasn't even civil."

"I'm sure she had a really good reason, Nate." Shane answered, trying to calm his friend down.

Caitlyn stood in the middle of her youngest daughter's room and tried very hard not to cry. Both girls had been up several times the night before, and Caitlyn was so tired that afternoon that she had put Melody, the baby, down for a nap in just her diaper. When she went to check on her an hour later, she found Melody, the crib, the wall and the carpet covered in feces. Apparently her daughter had taken off her poopy diaper and flung it all over the room.

Melody smiled happily at her mother from the crib and reached her arms up in the air to be picked up.

"Melody, baby," Caitlyn said sternly, "you cannot take off your diaper. It is very yucky. Okay?"

At that, Melody burst into tears and started to put her soiled hands in her mouth.

"No!" exclaimed Caitlyn, grabbing her daughter's hands in one of her own and using her free hand to sweep the girl out of the crib. She walked down the hallway to the master bathroom and turned on the water in the bathtub.

"Mommy!" Caitlyn heard her older daughter Annabelle yell. "How come Melody has chocolate in her room?"

Caitlyn's eyes widened. "Annabelle do not touch anything in your sister's room. Come to the bathroom right now!" She cried out. As she headed out the bathroom door in search of Annabelle, clutching a naked and very messy Melody, the phone rang. She could see from the caller ID it was her husband, so she picked up the phone, told him she couldn't talk now and hung up.

Caitlyn found her other daughter in the hallway and saw that she was already too late. Her older daughter would need a bath too. Annabelle looked at her mother and ask, "Mommy, why are your clothes all dirty?"

Caitlyn sighed. "Let's take a bath, girls."

Two hours, three loads of laundry, and two Barney videos later, Caitlyn finally got everyone and everything cleaned and sanitized. The girls were playing quietly, and she was just about to sit down when the phone rang.

"Hello," she answered.

"I can't believe you," she heard her husband say. Nate had been stewing for the entire two hours and was really worked up by the time he called his wife. "I haven't talked to you in three days and when I call, you hang up on me?"

Caitlyn was speechless. She was aware that her husband was still complaining when she heard Annabelle yelling, "Mommy! Guess what! It's snowing."

Snowing? It was July in California. How on earth could it be snowing? Caitlyn hurried down the hallway, stopped and gasped. Annabelle's entire room and both girls were covered in a fine white powder. They were jumping on the bed, giggling, and there was an empty, economy-sized bottle of baby powder on the floor.

Caitlyn took in the enormity of the mess, closed the door, and sunk to the floor sobbing with the phone still clutched in her hands. Nate had finally stopped talking and heard his wife's weeping. All of his anger left him.

"Caitlyn? Caitlyn, honey, what's wrong?" Nate asked, his pulse racing. As his wife poured out a somewhat disjointed account of her day, Nate winced. All of a sudden a few pushy reporters and an overly friendly photographer didn't sound so bad.

"Caity, baby, I am so sorry. What can I do?"

"Nothing, Nate." Caitlyn muttered. "In a few minutes I will get up off the floor, put a smile on my face and try and figure out how to get baby powder out of every nook and cranny of our daughter's bedroom. And there isn't much you can do about that from Florida."

"I'm so sorry. God, I can't believe I yelled at you."

"I know, Nate. I just…I need to go deal with this now," Caitlyn said.

"Yeah, of course. I love you," Nate replied.

"You too."

The next day the door bell rang three times.

The first time it was a delivery of flowers – 2 dozen roses for Caitlyn and a basket of daisies for each little girl. Caitlyn's card read, "I love you so much. Our girls are so lucky to have you for a mother, and I am so blessed to have you for a wife. Only a few more weeks!"

The second time it was a cleaning service.

The third time it was Mitchie, holding a suitcase. Mitchie grinned at her friend, "I heard that you could use a little help."


End file.
